Tuesday, November 14, 2017

Our guest author today is Michael Beashel. Michael is
Sydney-born and his Irish forebears immigrated to New South Wales in 1863 and
settled in Millers Point. He spent his youth in Bondi, is married with adult
children and lives in Sydney’s inner-west.

Michael was head of Asset Development for a global
accommodation services company registered on the NYSE and has made his mark in
some of Australia’s iconic construction companies. In Sydney, he has restored
government buildings such as the Customs House and the Town Hall, and completed
commercial buildings in the private sector. In SE Asia, he managed a
construction division that built apartments and hotels in Bangkok and Ho Chi
Minh City.

This industry—its characters, clients, trades people,
designers and bureaucrats—provides rich material for his writing. He has an eye
for the emergence of Sydney’s built form, from the early days of the colony to
the present, and a love of construction. He says about his writing, ‘It’s a
passion. I revel in using the building industry as a tapestry to weave a
great tale seasoned with historic facts and memorable characters. Human shelter
is an essential need and I suspect people have a fascination for
understanding its context and construction within their societies. Australia
still is a young country but there are many, many outstanding building
stories.’

Michael holds a B. App. Science (Building) from Sydney’s UTS
and is a member of the NSW Writers’ Centre. Michael finds his excitement in the
design and construction industry, military history and Rugby. He’s sailed in Herons
but leaves the racing and honours to other family members! Unbound
Justice is his first novel and the sequels Unshackled and Succession
complete the Sandstone Trilogy. You can connect with Michael via Facebook, website and blog.

Shelter is the third human need and it’s essential for civilisation
to thrive. In genre fiction, the building industry has not been used much as a
context although bestsellers like the Pillars of the Earth paint vivid stories
and characters against the backdrop of monumental building construction. The
intent of my writing is to celebrate the building industry in nineteenth
century NSW using where possible historic examples of major works. Architecture
of the European period, the Renaissance and early to middle 20th-century
America has been given due attention. However the architects of colonial New
South Wales, post Greenway, and the contractors who executed their designs are
often not given the credence they deserve.

The time period for The Sandstone Trilogy was chosen because
it represented a profound change in New South Wales’s history. The first two
books date from 1850 to 1857 and highlight the massive expansion of the colony
due to the Gold Rush. Wool was certainly adding to the colony’s income but it
was the gold that created the explosion.

Liverpool St facing Hyde Park 1849

According to JM Freeland in his Architecture in Australia, a
History, ‘the newly rich men of means wanting large and substantial warehouses
and offices; town councils wanting magnificent city halls befitting their
new-found place in the sun; the churches with coffers filled by affluent
respectability- seeking parishioners wanting larger and proper Gothic edifices;
the publicans wanting imposing palaces in which to milk a sybaritic clientele
and tens of thousands of people just wanting a home—all this created a
splendiferous boom for the building fraternity.’

The price of labour and the cost of building materials
increased exponentially because of the sheer demand for them. Additionally
those tradesmen who were less passionate about their chosen careers were happy
to join their fellow gold seekers and try their luck. This sudden ‘vacuuming’
of tradesmen from New South Wales, especially Sydney building sites, created
demand for less skilled tradesmen and also promotion for others who would not
have normally risen to high ranks at such an early age.

Skinner's Family Hotel, George & Hunter Streets

It cannot be overemphasised how much the gold rush affected
New South Wales and Victoria. JM
Freeland says that “Australian architecture left its innocence behind when gold
was officially discovered in May 1851. The immediate effect of the turmoil on
architecture was negative. Building virtually stopped. It was in these
conditions that many of these substantial business firms of today were founded.
In the period 1851 to 1860 the population of Australia trebled to 1.2 million
people. Victoria from 76,000 to 540,000!”

One of the fascinating sources has been a compilation of
drawings done by Joseph Fowles and printed by himself in Harrington Street in
1848. St Patrick’s Church in Charlotte Place (present day Grosvenor Street) was
dedicated in March 1844. Between King and Market Streets in Pitt Street stood
the Royal Victoria Theatre. “The fronts are bold and lofty faced with fine
brick with massive stone dressings and cornices. The spirited proprietor Mr
Moffit deserves great credit for the liberality with which he has contributed
towards ornamenting the city.”

Markets and Police Court, George St

On the social front, one reference written in the era was Mr
James Inglis’s account of Sydney and its people. Mr Inglis was a member of the NSW
Legislative Assembly in 1885. He wrote a book called, “Our Australian Cousins.” It was in effect an early example of a
traveller’s blog.

York Street was the place to live, especially between Sydney
Town Hall and Wynyard square. The merchants’ palaces were selling for £30,000
to build.

Shop windows were small and mean. The structure of each shop
jutted out into Pitt and George streets. Horses were hitched to posts and the
horses were called walers.

Customs House

The taxi cabs were elegant, light in draft, roomy and
comfortable. They were above the average and the horses sleek and well groomed.
The taxi driver charged four shillings per hour, nine pence for a quarter of an
hour.

References:

Sydney electoral roll “a narrative on the
visit to land colonies 1843.”

The origins of the Master builders
Association of New South Wales, 1873 to 1889

The Evolution of the
Wooden Ship: Basil Greenhill, Sam Manning

The collected evidence from Clive Lucas’s
Stapleton and partners.

Sydney’s roads- Rosemary Broomham’s “Vital Connections”

History of Australia by Manning Clark
Volumes Three and Four from 1824 to 1888.

Images from State and Mitchell Libraries of NSW

John Leary boards ship in Ireland in 1850, a young carpenter
ambitious for a new life in Australia. He sails with revenge in his heart—his
beloved sister has been raped by her landlord, William Baxterhouse, who escapes
on another ship with even grander plans for success in New South Wales. In
Sydney, hard workers like Leary and ruthless newcomers like Baxterhouse find a
city fired by the Gold Rush and dedicated to creating the finest buildings in
the colony. Leary has a double motive to make his construction company succeed:
he has fallen in love with the beautiful Clarissa McGuire, whose family despise
him, and Baxterhouse continues to rise in wealth and influence, seemingly
untouchable. Meanwhile another woman, Beth O’Hare, is in love with John Leary,
and he makes some hard choices—including a climactic showdown with Baxterhouse.

Unbound Justice is
the first novel in The Sandstone Trilogy:
a new, magnificent view of nineteenth-century Sydney from the ground up.

Thanks for sharing your insights with us, Michael. Congratulations on the trilogy.

Sunday, September 24, 2017

Dr Gillian Polack is a Medieval historian and has PhDs in both History and Creative Writing. She researches how history and fiction interface and has a strong interest in how genre narratives operate. She has also been a reviewer, critic and non-fiction writer and an award judge. Gillian's latest novel is The Wizardry of Jewish Women which was nominated for best novel in the 2017 Ditmar Awards. She has also released a volume of her research for the book in History and Fiction (Peter Lang, 2017) Eighteen of her short stories are in print and she has edited two anthologies and an historical cookbook. One story won a Victorian Ministry of the Arts award and three more were listed as recommended reading in international lists of world’s best stories. She has received two writing fellowships at Varuna, arts grants, and a Ditmar award for her work. Her book, The Middle Ages Unlocked: A Guide to Life in Medieval England 1050-1300 is co authored with Katrin Kania. Gillian ran two masterclasses during the HNSA 2017 conference. Here is her wrap-up of those sessions.

I was very lucky in the
writers who joined me for it – they were thoughtful and pushed to understand
more about how they can write history into their fiction, ways of doing it
well, and they thought a great deal about the implications of their work.
That’s why I’m writing a report on it. Their work was useful for other writers.
Let me tell you about it.

None of the writers were beginners. Not all of them wrote historical
fiction. This meant that, for my preparation, I read tens of thousands of
words. Then I pulled their work together and looked at what participants knew
and did and how they expressed it. The background I called on was my own work
as an historian, as a fiction writer and as a researcher into the culture
brought (intentionally or not) into novels and other long narratives. I focussed on genre, because the decisions writers make are different
depending on the genre they’re writing in. I wasn’t asking the participants to
learn principles, but to apply them to their own work and to discover what this
led to. At its simplest, we looked at what made up a piece of telling detail in
a part of their work and what uses that information had for the reader and how
to make it work more effectively. At its most complicated, we talked about
ethics and how historical fiction is interpreted by readers.

Because this teaching is directly related to my research, it can go in a
number of directions, depending on the writers and their needs. I look at
simple techniques like building telling detail and how to bring a scene to life
for readers, but in the classes we also looked at story space.Story space is difficult to explain in a single paragraph for me at this
moment in my research. This is because the story space I teach isn’t the same
as the story space that’s written about. "Normal" story space is the
place where readers go in their minds to live the tale. My story
space is where writers go to write the tale. When writers know how to move into
it and use it cleverly, it can make a big difference for their writing.Story space is a very powerful tool. Using it to focus discussion, we
talked about ways of reducing research time, understanding the path the novel
is taking and how it fits into genre. How writing within genre works from story
space and how this relates to how one sells a novel. Story space was especially
important for the writers in the second class. We explored their needs as
writers and each one left with an understanding of what they can do with story
space. They can enter and leave it and use it to navigate and to make decisions
about ethics, research, characters, historical background and the story itself. In the first class, we didn’t talk directly about story space as much,
although it was there, in the background, most of the time. We focussed on how
history is presented, especially in the case of silencing some groups, and
presenting some characters as hollow or as echoes. Story space played a role,
but a key focus became how to handle history ethically. We talked about how our
fiction reflects Australia’s cultural history, and how, unless we personally
examine the culture we carry with us we’re in danger of giving some very poor
gifts to our readers through feeding them our assumptions without knowing. One
of the students helped us understand these issues through giving us some very
illuminating anecdotes: each participant in these classes had as much to give
as to learn. Their thoughts and stories assisted a great deal in underlining
why writers need to know who they are and where they come from and what they
bring to their fiction.What emerged from both classes was a need to be aware that history can
be told in a way that will hurt because characters who come from a particular
background often fall into stereotypes, and that this affects our broader
culture when we modify the historical record in this way.Story space and the culture we carry into our writing work together to
help solve these problems. It’s never going to be easy, but it’s possible to
evaluate the relationship of wider culture, the culture we carry, and the needs
of our novel, and making the most appropriate decisions for our fiction.

Every really good writer balances this deep reflection with writing
techniques. This is why we also talked about the difference between history and
novels. What decisions have to be made in order to write a good novel? What
history is one actually producing? How is this history seen by historians?The second half of each session was mainly spent on looking at the work
of the individual writers in the class. My historian side was much in use, and
we talked about several historical periods and their sources and what different
ways there are to interpret them. We also talked about how to depict history so
that it comes to life and where to find examples of writing styles and how to
locate and use telling detail. There was so much to say and so much everyone wanted to hear. What was
sad was that I lost my voice in the middle. Over a week later and my voice
still has its moments. The writers were worth it, however. Hard-working and
thoughtful. I almost forgot the fact that I was croaking and whispering in
turn, because the questions were so interesting and their reflections so worth
hearing.I was very lucky in the authors who chose to do the masterclasses. There
are some very good novels in our nearish future. Note: The subject is big and it’s complicated and a blogpost doesn’t do
it justice. I’ve written on several aspects of the background I drew on for the
masterclasses (ie I’ve written about my own research), in my academic work
(History and Fiction was
easily the most useful single work for most of the writers), and in blog pieces
(such as some of those here ). For further information, read Wendy Dunn's interview with Gillian Pollack.

Join our celebration!

On the weekend of 8th – 10th September 2017, the Historical Novel Society Australasia (HNSA) is holding its Melbourne conference at Swinburne University, Hawthorn, exploring the theme of Identity: Origins and Diaspora. Our full programme can be found at our website.

History with a twist...

Our opening reception will be held on Friday 8th September where attendees will celebrate Kate Forsyth’s Beauty in Thorns with plenty of prizes.There will also be a lively round table discussion led by Nicolas Brasch in which Arnold Zable, Gary Crew, Hanifa Deen and Ngahuia te Awekotuku will discuss our theme, in particular, the role of the historical novelist in exploring first encounters in Australia and New Zealand’s colonial pasts, the migrant experience underlying those nations’ multicultural identities, and whether an author’s origins are relevant to the story telling.

Three concurrent streams

The conference program on September will consist of three streams. The first will continue to explore the conference theme and include interviews with a number of talented authors. The second stream will deal with research and writing craft; the third will consist of an academic programme.

Our guest author is Kerry Greenwood, author of the Phryne Fisher Mysteries, who will provide insights into her novels, her writing processes, the TV adaptation of her series, and other aspects of her stellar career.

Kerry Greenwood

Exploring our Australasian national identity

Other panels exploring our theme in our first stream include 'First Encounters and Our Colonial Past' with Lucy Treloar, Deborah Challinor, Nicole Alexander and Andrew Peters, followed by 'Immigrant Stories and Diaspora: How Pioneers Adapt and Survive in their New Land' with Kim Kelly, Arnold Zable, Maxine Alterio and Vicky Adin. And Natasha Lester, Robyn Cadwallader, Elisabeth Storrs and Kathryn Gauci will explore 'Venturing Forth: Exploring Historical Fiction beyond National Boundaries and Australian History.'

Time travelling, world wars and parallel narratives
Our second stream on Saturday will canvas various aspects of research, sub-genres and the writing craft. Wendy J Dunn, Barbara Gaskell Denvil, Stephanie Smee and Rachel Nightingale will discuss 'How to Transmute Research into Compelling Historical Fiction' while Paddy Richardson, Elise McCune, Justin Sheedy and Julian Leatherdale ponder 'World at War: The Appeal of 20th Century Historical Fiction.' 'The Outlander Effect: Parallel Narratives and Time Travelling' will see Belinda Murrell, Felicity Pulman, Gary Crew and Ella Carey discuss the challenges of weaving tales of two protagonists from different time periods into the plots and themes.

Deborah Challinor

'First pages' pitch contest

Our Saturday programme will end with our very popular First Pages Pitch Contest where an actor will read aloud chosen submissions from aspiring authors to industry experts who will provide a critique. The session will also provide other attendees with a chance to learn what attracts the attention of agents and publishers when seeking new historical fiction. Entrants will remain anonymous other than the winner. Our judges are Alison Green (Pantera Press), Sophie Masson (Eagle Books), Mandy Brett (Text Publishing). Rachel Nightingale will act as narrator. You can enter the Pitch Contest here.

Personal histories

The first stream on Sunday sees two Personal Histories sessions where Kate Forsyth explains why she delved into adult historical fiction after writing acclaimed fantasy novels for children and young adults while Deborah Challinor reveals where she obtained the inspiration for her three historical series, numerous standalone novels, and non-fiction books?

Award winning author, Sophie Masson, who has more than 50 novels published in Australia and internationally, will be asked what drives her passion for writing and love of history, while Lucy Treloar will explain what she thinks attracts readers and critics to her writing after her debut novel was released to a whirlwind of local and international acclaim.

Lucy Treloar

In'The Long Haul: Writing Successful Series and Multiple Books', Juliet Marillier,Libby Hathorn and Anne Gracie will reveal how they maintain momentum. And what keeps the spark of inspiration from being doused.

A much anticipated panel will be exploring the appeal of historical mysteries in which Sulari Gentill, Robert Gott, Meg Keneally and Gary Corby will ponder why readers are attracted to the addition of history to murder and mayhem, and the challenges novelists encounter when creating detectives who lack modern crime kits.

Sulari Gentill

Sub-genres and the writing craft

Our second Sunday stream will continue to highlight issues relating to the writing craft. Alan Tucker, Gabrielle Wang, Wendy Orr and Pamela Rushby will tell us why writing CYA fiction is not an easy option. Isolde Martyn, Lisa Chaplin, Alison Stuart and Anna Campbell will tease out whether there is a difference between historical romance and historical love stories. As a treat, Kate Mildenhall, Melissa Ashley, Greg Pyers and Luke Devenish will discuss the 'Modern Voice in Historical Fiction'. Should an historical novelist cater for the tastes of 21st Century readers by introducing modern expressions and dialogue in their novels? Is it valid to introduce current sensibilities to characters who would otherwise have been constrained by their own societies?

Anne Gracie

Pathways to publication

Our final sessions for Sunday will include 'Pathways to Publication', Lindy Cameron talks to agent Clare Forster and publishers Alison Green and Mandy Bretton the expectations of agents and publishers when looking for the next big thing in historical fiction.

Writing outside your comfort zone - sex and violence

And you will not want to miss out on our concluding panel where Kate Forsyth, Luke Devenish and Anna Campbell will read some of their saucier excerpts as well as provide tips on writing 'Outside the Comfort Zone: Writing Sex and Violence.'

Super sessions

There are ten skills-based workshop super sessions running concurrently with the main conference program on Historical Mysteries, Historical Romance, Children and Young Adult Fiction, Pitching to Publishers, Social Media, Scrivener, Self-Publishing, Family History, Trove, and the Business of Writing. Attendees will gain the benefit of tutors such as Sulari Gentill, Anne Gracie, Isolde Martyn, Elisabeth Storrs, Elizabeth Lhuede, GS Johnston, Kelly Gardiner, Hazel Edwards, Eleanor Limprecht, Rachel Franks and Lisa Chaplin. Purchase of a ticket entitles attendees an entry into a $100 Dymocks Gift Card Giveaway.

Kelly Gardiner

Transforming research and the clash of armour

Dr Gillian Polack is offering two masterclasses focused on how to weave research into convincing and authentic historical fiction. There also will be interactive sessions on armour with Matt Curran (Leif the Viking) and historical costumes with Rachel Nightingale. There is also a chance to have your manuscript assessed by industry experts, Alison Arnold and Irina Dunn. Book your appointment here.

Academic programme

HNSA is conducting a third stream which will give academics the chance to answer a call for papers in two topics: 'Bio-fiction: Can you Defame the Dead?' and 'The Lie of History'. Successful applicants will then present their papers. General admission is free to all attendees to enjoy listening to these fascinating discussions but spaces are limited so please reserve a space. More details about the academic sessions are available here.

Inaugural HNSA short story contest

HNSA is excited to announce the establishment of its inaugural short story contest with a prize of $500! Many thanks to Eagle Books for sponsoring the prize and to Sandra Gulland agreeing to act as judge. The winning entry and two other short listed stories will be published in Backstory ezine. The Historical Novel Society is also offering a free membership to the winner. You can enter the contest via this link.

Conference dinner

Robert Gott

Last but not least, don't miss our conference dinner where you can enjoy highlights of the day with your fellow attendees while eating a delicious meal and listening to our dinner speaker Robert Gott.

You can buy tickets to our conference and learn more about our speakers via our website www.hnsa.org.au. Book now to take advantage of early bird registration.

Thursday, August 31, 2017

Writers often dream of being published and getting their work ‘out there’. I am no exception. I had just completed my Masters of Creative Writing at Melbourne University when my first novel, Pickle to Pie co-won the Ilura Press International Fiction Quest. This meant a cash advance, plus publication and I was beside myself with excitement. Pickle to Pie was the story of a boy, a great-hearted German Grossmutter and a man caught between two worlds. It was a record of my father’s life. In his late eighties he would sit for hours telling me, or whoever would listen, the stories of his early life as a boy with a German name living through two world wars and a depression. After he died I discovered a box of old German postcards and decided to write his story. In the process I came to terms with my previously hidden German heritage.

In any society, there are many forms of cultural and personal censorship that prevent the telling of tales considered unpalatable, unsavoury, subversive or insignificant. The result is that written history can be one sided, dominated by strong cultural groups, the stories of minorities unvalued and unrecorded. These stories cry out to be heard and with every life extinguished, we lose part of our collective memory. Writers can give voice to neglected stories of human beings who have been damaged deeply by world events.

To be a guest speaker at the Historical Novel Society’s Conference Academic Program Session four at Swinburne University is a dream come true. On the 10th September from 10am-11am our focus will be on the Lie of History. It is my chance to give voice to the children of German descent who lived in Australia during the last century and struggled to come to terms with their opposing worlds.

I had promised myself, if Pickle to Pie was ever published that I would give up my day job. Hairdressing had always augmented the family income through good times and bad. After the book launch I stuck to my promise, sold the salon and walked away to a life of poverty. I knew I was not a J K Rowling, but I was happy.

My second novel has just been published but it has been a long road to publication. This manuscript has had at least three reincarnations with a change of title each time. Each version has its own merit and has taught me something valuable about the craft of writing. The novel, ‘Something Missing’ began life as ‘Hens Lay, People Lie’: my artefact for my PhD at Swinburne University.

I had often toyed with the idea of studying for my PhD but never dreamt it could happen. However, to be awarded an APA scholarship meant the opportunity to study at Swinburne University. I grabbed it with both hands. With the help of two supervisors I could learn the craft of writing and understand all the rules. I would then know why I was breaking them. I decided to do what so many writers do. I chose to write something close to my heart. Something entirely different. This time it would be based on my thirty-five year pen-friendship with an older American poet, a story about two women, a life changing pen-friendship and the lies they tell each other. I wrote in my journal, ‘I am writing an epistolary, autoethnographic novel grounded in both feminism and post modernist paradigms with the aim of revealing women’s hidden stories in the hope of instigating social change. I believe this embedded story of the journey of self discovery and friendship will carry with it the possibility of nothing less than the restoration of faith in human kind.’

What lofty aims, but here was a chance to use our letters, interspersed with text, to explore the influence this elderly poet had on a young woman who left school at fourteen to become a hairdresser: a woman who unconsciously yearned for the education given to her brother and denied to her. My journey into epistolary fiction using letter, diary and journal extracts, plus snippets of poetry, had begun.

I began work using an older American woman’s voice in first person narration; an elderly Australian woman in second person; and the young Australian mum in third person. The story would have embedded dialogue, following author, Debra Adelaide’s example, where only the formatting and actions of the characters, rather than dialogue marks, reveal to the reader who is speaking at that time. The elderly Australian woman would reveal the pitfalls and joys of writing a novel in a humorous, tongue in cheek, vein.

For three and a half years I am caught up in a world where my mind kept bouncing backwards and forwards between my creative writing of this novel and the formal academic exegesis.

Friends warned me that I would have a meltdown post PhD, but I was convinced that would not happen to me. I was too strong, too resilient. That sort of breakdown only happened to other people. The wail of the ambulance soon bought me back to earth with a thud. I asked my adult son what section of hospital I was in. He replied, ‘The resuscitation room, Mum.’ Two weeks later, just home from hospital and feeling weak and tired, I had resigned myself to missing my already paid for graduation ceremony. My son hired a wheelchair, determined I would make it.

There were only three PhD degrees awarded that night. I waited in the wings for all the BA’s, Masters and double degrees to be awarded before my son wheeled me over to join the queue waiting for their turn to hear their name called and to climb the stairs to the stage. Determined to walk under my own steam, doubts filled my mind. What if I couldn’t manage the stairs? What if I fainted, collapsed, or worse still, threw up when the chancellor, in all his finery handed me my much sort after certificate. What if...

To leave my wheelchair and walk on stage wearing the hired floppy Tudor bonnet and colourful gown was a highlight in my life. I had an overwhelming feeling of achievement and self worth that no one could take away from me. Afterwards, I thankfully joined my peers on the stage and proudly marched out with the academic procession only to flop into the wheelchair waiting by the door. The mature aged student journey from VCE to PhD had required passion, dogged determination and guts, but it had also been the most exciting, exhilarating time in my life. I knew I would miss it and all the friends I’d made along the way.

Using my recently gained title of Dr Glenice Whitting I sent my edited and, according to me, perfect manuscript out to publishers and waited for the offers to come rolling in. Nothing happened. Slowly, relentlessly, one after the other a stream of rejections arrived. ‘Thank you for sending Hens Lay People Lie, however...’

I was caught in a catch-22 situation. To get a publisher I needed an agent but to get an agent I needed a publisher. I also took a long hard look at what I’d written, and following the suggestions of American author/editor, Cindy Vallar, I inserted quotation marks to all the dialogue and renamed the manuscript ‘What Time is it There?’ Still the rejections arrived. It was ‘too academic’ too many voices, too literary, too hard to read and so on. Had I, over the years of study, begun to sound as if I’d swallowed a dictionary? I knew I had to, once again, rewrite the manuscript. It took a huge leap of faith to take it from literary fiction into popular fiction.

The third reincarnation is the one that is published. It was an invaluable lesson. To be a writer I had to be myself and write the way I really wanted to write, from the heart. I took out the overarching second person narrating character, made both Maggie and Diane third person narration, threw in a handful of suspense and Voilà...’Something Missing’ was born. It had gone beyond academia, beyond epistolarity into what is now called, popular faction. I was over the moon with excitement the day I received the email from Tim Ridgway and Melanie V Taylor of the international MadeGlobal Publishing. They loved the story and would I sign the contract?

It is every writer’s dream to hold their book in their hands. It gives them a chance to thank all the people who have helped along the way. There have been so many people I could list who have patiently and painstakingly worked with me through Pickle to Pie and all three versions of Something Missing. However, there is an indescribable joy in being able to finally thank them formally, via an acknowledgment page.

It is invaluable for a writer to participate in conferences and to be part of the Historical Novel Society of Australasia. The HNSA provides the opportunity to talk with readers and authors and discuss writing and promoting ideas. The members are so supportive and it feels like you belong to one large family. Why don’t you join us during this stimulating and inspirational weekend filled with talks, feedback and historical writing workshops? Go to HNSA and check out the program.

Glenice Whitting left school at fourteen to become a hairdresser. Her journey as a mature-aged student too her from VCE to PhD in creative writing. Her debut novel, Pickle to Pie, was published by Ilura Press. Her latest novel, Something Missing, was launched at Swinburne University in December 2016. Both books are available from Dymocks book stores and at her website. Something Missing is also available though Made Global, Book Depository, and Amazon. Connect with Glenice on her website or on Facebook
at Writers and their Journey.

As part of our HNSA 2017 academic program, Glenice will be discuss: The Lie of History: How the mirror of the present shapes the past for its own purposes with Wendy J Dunn, Diane Murray, Gillian Polack and Cheryl Hayden.

Admission to the academic programme is free but bookings are essential. You can find more details about Lie of History session on our website or buy tickets here.

HNSA 2017 Conference

The HNSA 2017 Melbourne Conference is being held on 8-10 September 2017 at Swinburne University.

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HNS AUSTRALASIA

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